The main objective of this ethnographic study is to examine the processes by which minority students, Koreans Born in Japan (KBJs), are able to find their own voices within Japanese educational settings. I also explore how minority, KBJ students, and majority, Japanese students, learn to understand each other and their identities in two educational settings: university and high school, and how educators' knowledge and theories contribute to the process. One setting is a sociology class taught by a Japanese professor. The other setting is a Japanese public high school. For this ethnographic study, my data consist of transcriptions of interview sessions, reflection essays and reaction papers written by students. The data also include daily field notes on my classroom observations, my interactions with the participants and email messages from the participants. I analyze and interpret the data by looking at the data sources inclusively in order to answer my research questions. The results show that the KBJ students explore their identities reflectively and describe and revalue themselves as active participants of society within humanistic and liberatory educational settings. Originally, my research questions focused on only KBJ learners. However, in the process of collecting data, I realized that I had obtained important data from my Japanese participants. This helped to refine my research questions to incorporate the process of how majority students, describe, demystify, and redefine their perceptions of their KBJ peers as well as their own identities. This study highlights the ways in which educators, knowledge and theories influence the processes by which both minority and majority students describe, demystify and redefine their own identities self reflectively. My findings indicate that humanistic and liberatory education offer opportunities for minority students to describe and revalue themselves as learners and active participants in society. In addition, humanistic and liberatory education also offers opportunities for majority students to describe, demystify and redefine their KBJ peers as well as their own identities.

This thesis focuses on multiple identity constructions and symbolic uses of language among Mexican-Americans in Arizona. The concept of a homogeneous "Mexican-American community" is shown to be a construct--an imagined community. Building on anthropological conceptualizations of identity, and studies in language and identity, a framework of the simultaneity of experience focuses the analysis in terms of ethnicity, class, and gender, framing a discussion of the emotional dimension of minority status and the symbolic function of language in identity. Rather than offer a comprehensive analysis of a bounded Mexican-American identity, this paper offers insight into the construction of multiple identities, through the analysis of discourse from a small group of people; individual voices are highlighted through the use of case studies. Conceptualizations of identity construction are problematized, including the common expectation of heterogeneity in ethnic groups such as those of Mexican heritage.

This study examined the feelings and perceptions of Southern Ute students about their tribal heritage. These students attend a high school located on the Southern Ute reservation in Southwestern Colorado. The sample of Indian students was limited to senior high (grades 10 through 12). Total Southern Ute enrollment in the school was 31.6 percent of the overall enrollment. The students involved in this study represented 23.5 percent of the total Southern Ute enrollment in grades 9 through 12. These Indian students experienced acculturation processes in differing ways. Some see themselves as no different from their non-Indian peers, while others see themselves distinctly and uniquely as Ute Indians.

The main purpose of this study is to compare and analyze four interior design programs in the United States, offered at the first professional degree level, to the four interior design programs offered at the baccalaureate level in Thailand. The eight selected programs were: Arizona State University, University of Cincinnati, University of Missouri-Columbia, Rhode Island School of Design, Silpakorn University, King Mongkut's Institution of Technology, Rangsit University, and Bangkok University. The procedure for comparing these programs was made by using the Foundation for Interior Design Education Research's (FIDER's) Eight Basic Categories of Standards for accreditation. An in-depth analysis of each program was completed by breaking down the number of courses and the number of credit hours required in each interior design program and then placing each one into the appropriate FIDER category. In conclusion, the researcher found that between the two countries, the interior design programs showed much variation.

Because of the removal policy of the American government, Indian Territory was made the new home of over thirty Indian nations, including the Five Civilized Tribes of the Southeast. In an effort to stabilize and maintain peaceful and helpful relations between these immigrant nations over fifty international councils were called throughout the history of this territory. During the 1870's, the delegates of the nations attending the Okmulgee Council also attempted to form a confederacy. These circumstances provide an excellent microcosm of Native American internationalism, and by analyzing the nature of the diplomacy that occurred among these nations this thesis will propose a pattern or model that will hopefully be useful in understanding the international relations that occurred between the indigenous nations over the last 500 years.

Indian Claims in the United States Court of Claims possess the unique quality of close congressional scrutiny. Because of the long-standing legislative relationship existing between the legislative branch and Indian tribal groups, the experiences of tribes in the Court of Claims held particular dynamics which were exclusively distinctive in many ways. It is my hypothesis that congressional plenary power over Indian tribes and the influential legislative control which Congress exercised over the Court of Claims combined to put Indians in a litigatory environment which doomed the possibility for the majority of tribes to achieve successful redress of grievances.

This study examined early adolescent risk for substance use in a sample of 1,170 sixth and seventh graders. Risk was assessed by inspecting the predictive strength of thirteen continuous variables from the interpersonal (peer pressure, peer substance use, parental monitoring, parent-child involvement, academic achievement, and school adjustment) and intrapersonal (self efficacy, impulsivity, withdrawal, depression, somatization, delinquency, and aggression) domains. Consistent with expectations, mean levels of substance use did not differ by gender or ethnicity (Caucasians and Hispanics). In addition, model-free LISREL analyses revealed underlying process similarity of predictors between sixth and seventh graders and between Caucasians and Hispanics. Interpersonal variables accounted for significantly more variance in early adolescent lifetime substance use than intrapersonal variables (39% versus 25%). Finally, weighting continuous independent predictors did not meaningfully improve prediction of lifetime substance use. The importance of process similarity and the significance of the peer domain in early adolescent substance use are discussed.

American Indian students have historically been underrepresented in higher education. Graduation and persistence rates for American Indians are distressingly low. Increasing Indian student retention has become a priority on many campuses. At the University of Arizona, a wing within a residence hall was reserved for American Indian students as part of a recruitment and retention program. The purpose of this thesis was to describe and assess the history, development and implementation of the American Indian wing. All of the traditional predictors for academic success show that the residents of the wing were at risk for dropping out of college. All of the first year students who lived on the wing were enrolled in Spring 1994. Given this important indicator the wing was a success. The American Indian wing was the beginning of a retention program that encourages Indians to remain at college without compromising cultural values.

This study sought to examine patterns of acculturation among a sample of 18 Mexican American college students and to compare them with participants' scores on a self-esteem scale, which was selected as a measure of adjustment. Mendoza's Cultural Life Style Inventory was used to assess acculturation due to its ability to provide a more precise profile of acculturation. Self-esteem was measured with the 10-item Rosenberg Self-esteem Scale. Although the findings did not indicate a statistically significant correlation between the two, the data contained in the acculturation assessments, particularly, suggested some interesting indications to the effect that while most have an overall dominant tendency of cultural shift, the tendencies exhibited in several individual dimensions more frequently tended to be cultural incorporation or cultural resistance. It was also noted that the self-esteem scores tended to be quite high.

This work investigates the ideological content of Brazilian comics created under the military dictatorship of 1964-1985. The comics promote a vision of national history and identity that corresponds to the military's focus on industrialization. Brazilian history is portrayed as a peaceful transition to a modern, urban nation of white, middle class, rigidly gendered nuclear families. Despite explicit messages of equality, social groups are implicitly subordinated in a hierarchy of social place according to region, race, ethnicity, class, and gender. Recognizing the processes through which the subordination of social groups is legitimated and protest suppressed is essential to combating inequality in contemporary Brazil.